The First Apology, his most well-known text, passionately defends the morality of the Christian life, and provides various ethical and philosophical arguments to convince the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius to abandon the persecution of the Church.

This notion allows him to claim many historical Greek philosophers (including Socrates and Plato), in whose works he was well studied, as unknowing Christians.

[8] Justin Martyr was born c. AD 90–100,[9][10] into a Greek family,[10][11] at Flavia Neapolis (today Nablus) near the ancient biblical city of Shechem, in Samaria.

[15] In the opening of the Dialogue,[16] Justin describes his early education, stating that his initial studies left him unsatisfied due to their failure to provide a belief system that would afford theological and metaphysical inspiration to their young pupil.

[16][a] Some time afterwards, he chanced upon an old man, possibly a Syrian Christian,[17] in the vicinity of the seashore, who engaged him in a dialogue about God and spoke of the testimony of the prophets as being more reliable than the reasoning of philosophers.

These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those things alone which they saw and which they heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

[16]Moved by the aged man's argument, Justin renounced both his former religious faith and his philosophical background, choosing instead to re-dedicate his life to the service of the Divine.

[21] In the reign of Marcus Aurelius, after disputing with the cynic philosopher Crescens, he was denounced by the latter to the authorities, according to Tatian (Address to the Greeks 19) and Eusebius (HE IV 16.7–8).

A considerable number of other works are given as Justin's by Arethas of Caesarea, Photius of Constantinople, and other writers, but this attribution is now generally admitted to be spurious.

The Epistola ad Zenam et Serenum, an exhortation to Christian living, is dependent upon Clement of Alexandria, and was assigned by Pierre Batiffol to the Novatian Bishop Sisinnius (c. 400).

The extant work under the title "On the Sovereignty of God" does not correspond with Eusebius' description of it, though Adolf von Harnack regarded it as still possibly Justin's, and at least of the 2nd century.

Internal textual evidence shows that multiple older manuscripts were used to create this one, which strongly suggests that it must have originated in a major population center like Mistra, since libraries holding Justin Martyr were already rare by 1364.

[40] The Dialogue is a later work than the First Apology; the date of composition of the latter, judging from the fact that it was addressed to Antoninus Pius and his adopted sons Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, must fall between 147 and 161.

Justin's dialogue with Trypho is unique in that he provides information on tensions between Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus of the second century (Dial.

Methodius appeals to Justin in support of his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:50 in a way that makes it natural to assume the existence of a treatise on the subject, to say nothing of other traces of a connection in thought both here in Irenaeus (V., ii.-xiii.

Flacius discovered "blemishes" in Justin's theology, which he attributed to the influence of pagan philosophers; and in modern times Semler and S.G. Lange have made him out a thorough Hellene, while Semisch and Otto defend him from this charge.

Engelhardt has attempted to extend this line of treatment to Justin's entire theology, and to show that his conceptions of God, of free will and righteousness, of redemption, grace, and merit prove the influence of the cultivated Greek pagan world of the 2nd century, dominated by the Platonic and Stoic philosophy.

Opposition to Judaism was common among church leaders in his day; however, Justin Martyr was hostile towards Jewry and regarded Jews as an accursed people.

[46] While the gentile peoples, seduced by devils, had deserted the true God for idols, the Jews and Samaritans possessed the revelation given through the prophets and awaited the Messiah.

[46] The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia notes that scholars have differed on whether Justin's writings on the nature of God were meant to express his firm opinion on points of doctrine, or to speculate on these matters.

The Encyclopedia states that Justin places the genesis of the Logos as a voluntary act of the Father at the beginning of creation, noting that this is an "unfortunate" conflict with later Christian teachings.

[49] Justin Martyr, in his First Apology (c. 155) and Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160),[50] sometimes refers to written sources consisting of narratives of the life of Jesus and quotations of the sayings of Jesus as "memoirs of the apostles" (Greek: ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων, romanized: apomnêmoneúmata tôn apostólôn) and less frequently as gospels (Greek: εὐαγγέλιον, romanized: euangélion) which, Justin says, were read every Sunday in the church at Rome (1 Apol.

[54] However, scholar Helmut Koester has pointed out the Latin title "Memorabilia" was not applied to Xenophon's work until the Middle Ages, and it is more likely apomnemoneumata was used to describe the oral transmission of the sayings of Jesus in early Christianity.

[56] The importance which Justin attaches to the words of the prophets, which he regularly quotes with the formula "it is written", shows his estimate of the Old Testament Scriptures.

[63] According to scholar Oskar Skarsaune, Justin relies on two main sources for his proofs from prophecy that probably circulated as collections of scriptural testimonies within his Christian school.

31–53) is believed to have had a Two Parousias Christology, characterized by the belief that Jesus first came in humility, in fulfillment of prophecy, and will return in glory as the Messiah to the Gentiles.

It is narrated in the memoirs of the apostles that as soon as Jesus came up out of the river Jordan and a voice said to him: 'You are My Son, this day I have begotten you', this Devil came and tempted him, even so far as to exclaim: 'Worship me'; but Christ replied: 'Get behind me, Satanas, the Lord your God shall you worship, and Him only shall you serve'.

For, since the Devil had deceived Adam, he fancied that he could in some way harm him also.The quotations refer to the fulfillment of a prophecy of Psalm 2:7 found in the Western text-type of Luke 3:22.

cit., 104), at the beginning of all His works (Dial., lxi, lxii, II Apol., vi, 3); in this last text certain authors thought they distinguished in the Word two states of being, one intimate, the other outspoken, but this distinction, though found in some other apologists, is in Justin very doubtful.

The Word is diffused through all humanity (I Apol., vi; II, viii; xiii); it was He who appeared to the patriarchs (I Apol., lxii; lxiii; Dial., lvi, lix, lx etc.).